After 20 years of chaos, The Dillinger Escape Plan will soon be calling it a day. In an interview with Noisey, guitarist and sole remaining founding member Ben Weinman detailed why, after a tour following the release of Disassociation on October 14, The Dillinger Escape Plan will be no more. “I’ve been so involved in every aspect of Dillinger for 20 years,” Weinman told Noisey, “that I really need to do something else, collaborate with other people and release something that isn’t only tied to Dillinger because that isn’t really healthy.”
The Dillinger Escape Plan first emerged in 1997 with the release of its self-titled EP, and the band would go on to become one of the most influential—and easily the most successful—of the emerging math-core and metalcore genres. Its 1999 debut album, Calculating Infinity, was a savage mix of metal riffs, jazz-inspired drumming, and prog-rock expanse. It would be the lone album to feature vocalist Dimitri Minakakis, whose departure would give the band the creative freedom to collaborate with likeminded weirdos such as Mike Patton, and eventually find Greg Puciato, who has fronted the band since 2001.
Puciato joining the band would push The Dillinger Escape Plan’s intense live shows to even greater heights. He’d breathe fire during sets, climb speaker stacks and stage lights, and headwalk on fans at an in-store, while the rest of the band performed as if it had a vendetta against its instruments. It’s what made The Dillinger Escape Plan capable of filling a 15-minute compilation of “crazy moments,” and have that title ring completely true.
As Weinman told Noisey, Dillinger’s live shows are part of the reason the band can’t continue long-term. “I mean, it’s probably a fact that we couldn’t do it when we’re 60, but we’re not stopping right now because we feel incapable, that’s for sure.” Along with this announcement, the band released “Limerent Death,” the first song from Disassociation. It shows that Dillinger never stopped growing musically, not allowing itself to be confined by the genres it helped pioneer. Instead, the band found ways to incorporate new style while still making them explosive in a way only Dillinger could.